Featured Installation

Critical Elements

Secondary Elements

The Road to Innovation

The Conversion

BLOOD TEST LABEL/FORM DOCUMENT
AN INNOVATION IN DESIGN AND PROCESS.

Some years ago distributor Bill Kusumoto developed and sold a continuous label/form blood-test document to one of his customers, a large medical lab. At the time, this design was state-of-the-art, given the technology of the day. Blood and drug test documents have been traditionally manufactured as pre-numbered, multiple part continuous forms with a pre-numbered label joined to the form.

These documents are used to process blood tests. The tests are done anonymously. In order to maintain anonymity, the document has the patient's name and a number, but the label applied to the test tube has only the bar code number. The test results are tracked by the number and returned to the document with the same number. Everyone dealing with blood test label/form documents understands the two critical elements and the two secondary elements of the document:

CRITICAL ELEMENTS:

The numbers on the document and the label must match. Traditional production of blood test documents involves matching up pre numbered labels with pre numbered forms. If the numbers don't match the test results are given to the wrong patient. It is needless to point out the liability of such a situation.
The label adhesive does not tear the medical technician's glove, potentially exposing the technician to the blood sample.

SECONDARY ELEMENTS:

The label must remain attached to the sample. An aggressive adhesive is necessary to hold the label around the narrow sample cylinder, especially through centrifuge, to prevent edge lifting of the label. This requirement conflicts with the need to make sure the adhesive does not rip the technician's glove. Blood samples are frequently transported closely stacked in trays after centrifuge. Edge lift of a label may result in the edge attaching to a nearby tube and being removed from the original test tube.
The bar code on the label is scannable on a first read basis. Samples are frequently scanned in groups. Since the labels are small and the encoded number in the bar code commonly contains at least eight digits, the bar code density tends to be high and the bars more difficult to read. A problem with the bar code is time consuming as a scan failure requires the entire tray of samples to be rescanned.

THE ROAD TO INNOVATION:
Recently, Bill and his customer met to review how the process could be improved. It was agreed they would pursue a new process that would reduce the risk of mismatched labels and forms to ZERO, reduce the clinic's paper work processing and improve the scan ability of the bar code, without compromising the safety requirements for the technician.

DESIGNING A SOLUTION:
Bill called Pointil Systems to assist him. Pointil Systems has provided blood test and drug test label/form documents to some of the nation's largest testing labs over the last decade. We worked with Bill to provide his customer a completely new system. In order to meet the lab's goals, a complete change in the document and process was required. The result was a laser dual web one-part product that would be numbered by the clinic as the document was created. The document consisted of a laser compatible latex label stock with a glove friendly, laser compatible adhesive and a lay-flat laser compatible liner.

THE CONVERSION:
The lab agreed to convert to a different bar code symbology, capable of being printed on demand by the lab's laser printers and also enabling a higher first read rate of the bar code. While the previous document had multiple plies that were physically distributed to requiring parties, the new document was part of a process including electronic distribution of the information, thus eliminating the cost of additional copies as well as the processing and recollection of all the data.

THE RESULTS:
The end results were 100% accuracy in blood test tracking, lower document and processing costs, and higher first read rates of the bar code.

The solution required the lab to willingly move away from the traditional process that they and most other labs have been using for years and accept a completely different approach. A different but simplified process allowed the utilization of a simpler, less expensive document and a simpler and less expensive process.

The cost was the initial investment in the change in electronic information processing and associated training to implement the new system. However, the payback was spectacular for the lab in terms of quality of service and the reduction of variable costs and labor.